How To Stop Overthinking In 4 Steps

Things change in life every day. Giving extra attention to something leads you to overthink about it, and you end up losing the positive side of it and focus only on negative things. When you overthink about an issue, you give birth to negativity causing chaos and unwanted stress. It is human nature to think about negative things more than positive ones, and by overthinking, we start picking out the negative in everything.

Overthinking can be harmful to your health as it causes stress and anxiety leading to high blood pressure and hypertension. This habit we have has to be controlled and here is my advice to handle overthinking.

1. Broaden your vision

We overthink about things because they matter to us. To overcome this dilemma of overthinking it is important to see how much that particular thing will matter to you in next 5 or 10 years. By overthinking we start seeing the problem bigger than what it is in reality.

So visualize how important the thing is for you and ask your self, will it really impact you in long run? This will help you to take the problem more lightly and relax about it. If something doesn’t hurt you after 5 years, there isn’t any point in spending your productive energy on it today.

2. Understand you cannot control everything

Overthinking happens when we try to control everything and curve for perfection. This usually happens because of self-doubt. As when we are not too confident about something, we start focusing more on it to get the best. This makes us overthink about the issue.

To come out of this pattern, it is important to understand that you cannot control everything in life. Things that are meant to happen will eventually happen, and there are uncertainties also. Learn to acknowledge these uncertainties.

3. Focus on positive things

Ups and downs are a part of our lives, and we experience both good and bad things. When we start paying more attention to the negative, we start neglecting the positive stuff and end up ruining our peace. This makes one ungrateful also, as he only sees the darker parts of his life.

Concentrate on good things happening to you every day. Make a list of all small things you experience daily that make you smile. Be thankful for everything. Doing this will shift your focus from negativity, and you will start enjoying the good in your life.

4. Set a timer for decision making

Another reason we overthink is that we take too long to make choices and decisions. We keep thinking more and more about it and starting imagining the negative consequences that might never even happen. We view it from every angle, and this develops a vague view of things going wrong.

To overcome this, set a deadline for yourself. Teach yourself how much time you should give to one particular decision and do not spend more than that. Do not be very haste, but do not take too long either. This will help you to consider only a few aspects without stressing about it.